THE Tembari Children's Care (TCC) Inc is a day care facility at ATS Oro Settlement, 7-Mile, outside of Port Moresby, PNG. To date, it takes care of more than 200 former street children - orphans, abandoned and the unfortunate - by serving them meals twice a day, and providing them early education. Assistance - food and money - is sent by supporters who find merit in the services we provide to these children. At The Center, they are family. For all of these, we need support that is sustainable.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

150 kids dined at The Center on Thursday

Three pots cooking at the same time. One is boiling ham-masala soup, another is for rice and the third is for curry corned beef. (More pictures after the story.)

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZA Friend of Tembari Children

LAST THURSDAY, about 150 children came to The Center for dinner food, out of the usual 98 who are the registered beneficiaries of the Tembari Children’s Care (TCC) day care/orphanage facility.

The excess diners were village children who must have discovered there was no food at home for the night, and The Center was there only hope for something to eat – something that could last them over night.

What added to the bizarre situation was that the skies opened up and dumped all the rains it could that afternoon, and again The Center had become their shelter from the downpour.

I immediately considered this as a symbolism of what we do for the unfortunate kids of ATS Oro Settlement at 7-Mile, outside of Port Moresby.

That Thursday afternoon, I received a call from one of the volunteers in charge of cooking meals at The Center alerting me to the situation – meaning, there were 150 kids to feed and the food budget for that day would be shot.

Everyday, we normally cook 10kg of rice plus lots of tinned fish enough to cover the dinner meal of our wards. The extra diners represented half of our registered beneficiary children.“Do we drive them away …?” I was asked, trying to imagine how mad the rain was belting down that moment.

And beside we don’t have enough space for everybody at The Center to keep them away from getting wet, so it was a problem.

But the additional food that we have to spare was the one that concerned us all.

“No … let them stay for the food … just use another 5kg of rice and some tinned fish so everybody could eat,” I told the volunteer who works as the caretaker of the facility.

So, yesterday during my Saturday cooking at The Center in which I cooked a carton of corned beef and ham-masala soup, I asked the volunteer mothers about last Thursday afternoon’s incident.

“Fredo …They just came here (The Center) from all over the village and wanted to eat with our children …” a mother whom I call Kairuku -- although that’s not her name but having come from that village with the same name, I decided to call her that -- told me.

“Maybe they had no food in the house that night, so they came over here because they knew we cook for our own children everyday … maybe their parents had asked them to drop by here and have some food …”

“Okay … that’s settled for now …” I said.

Then I asked: “How do we avoid the same situation from happening?” I asked, referring to the sudden surge of village children to The Center.

“No, we can’t … they just pop up here and it would be quite heartless for us to do that …” butted in Hayward, the president of TCC.

But he said he will see to it that the caretaker at The Center would try to screen immediately all the kids showing up for dinner. Those who don’t belong could be advised to go home instead, before they could settle themselves at the dining tables.

You see, dear readers, we feed our children twice a day – something of a feat for a fledgling soup kitchen like the Tembari day care and orphanage facility.

At noon, our mothers bake bread early in the day for our preschoolers who finish classes by noon. The freshly baked bread is their usual noontime snacks.

About this time, our elementary children start coming home to The Center for their early dinner with our preschoolers.

And such an event at The Center is something never missed by village children who could go hungry at home by the time nightfall comes, especially when their parents are unable to bring food to the table for dinner.

In fact, this is the usual “talk of the town”, so to speak, at ATS Oro Settlement

And everything boils down to the continuing support we receive from our kindhearted benefactors, supporters and donors.

For this, I personally owe all of you a big ONE.

ontainers of donated purified water.

Melanie, one of the Tembari kids, helping out to cook the soup.

Moms cooking the dish for Saturday’s especial lunch.

Preschool kids playing inside the classroom while waiting for lunch.

Kids playing marbles while waiting for lunch.

Kids kill time chatting while waiting for lunch.

Kids are alive with their hands raised.

Melanie (center) and the other girls are getting hungry now.

Children in line wait to have their hands washed before lunch.

The ham-masala soup is now boiling to the brim.

Two volunteer men build a kitchen table.

Volunteer moms straining flour to remove bugs and weevils.

At last, lunch is cooked and moms prepare to serve it to the hungry children.

THE BLOGGER

ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ, A Friend of Tembari Children. Blogger APH came to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in 1993 to join The National newspaper as one of its pioneering journalists. Working as Executive Sub Editor, he has remained with the daily, now the country’s No. 1 newspaper, up to these days. He has been a journalist since his university days in Manila back in the late 60s. APH’s involvement with the Tembari children began in January 2010 after he discovered them at a Christmas party for the city’s 500 unfortunate children held at the Botanical Garden in Port Moresby. That day, he was chasing a story for The National, which happened to be that of the unfortunate children in the city. His self-appointed job for Tembari children composed of orphaned, abandoned, neglected and unfortunate children is to look for people and groups who could provide them food, money, health services and facilities necessary to create positive changes in their lives. This job is difficult, but what the heck …!

(Our sponsored Saturday lunch for the 200 Tembari kids costs only K250.00 per sponsor (we usually have two), which covers a special meat (fish or chicken) dish, veggies, steamed rice and cordial drink. The Saturday lunch needs at least two sponsors. Some had given more, allowing us to give the kids a generous heap of the day’s lunch. A rare bonus to the sponsors, along with the bricks they earn each time, is that I personally cook the dish, giving it a personal touch. And as they earn a brick, each of our benefactors also earn a passage into the heart of the Tembari kids, which is also a prepaid ticket to Heaven.)